Korea

Seoul, South Korea -- A SILLY JOKE about Korea's impassioned new economic vision of itself and of the world has a dutiful mother cat trying hard to catch a mouse to feed her hungry babies. Finally, she corners the poor creature in his hole and tries to trick him out by barking like a dog.At first, the clever mouse thinks to him self, "No, that is only the cat barking . . ." But eventually he is taken in and comes out, only to be snatched swiftly away by the mother cat. As her children applaud, the mother tells them proudly, "And that . . . is globalization!"

This year marks the observance of landmark anniversaries of several military milestones in U.S. history. The 150th anniversary of the third year of the Civil War, among the bloodiest in American military history, is commemorated throughout 2013. This year also is the bicentennial of the second year of the War of 1812; it was a year notable for the British Navy's Chesapeake campaign which resulted in the sacking of Havre de Grace. Notably, a century ago this year was the last full year of what passed for peace in the complicated lead up to the start of World War I. The coming year marks the centennial of the start of what was initially referred to as the Great War, but would later be called the War to End All Wars and then when another great war erupted a generation later, World War I. This year also marks the 60th anniversary of the end of a war that looms large in American policy even now, the Korean War. In an effort to ensure that the Korean War doesn't get lost in the mix, a group of veterans from Harford County who fought on the peninsula nation that borders China's northern Manchuria territories, but has been claimed at times by Japan, donated $1,000 to the county's public library system to support commemorations of the 60th anniversary.

Navy Seaman Brian M. Marousek recently took part in a military exercise in the Republic of Korea while assigned aboard the command ship USS Blue Ridge.The training exercise involved defending the Republic of Korea. The USS Blue Ridge is the flagship for the commander of the Navy's 7th Fleet, who is in charge of all U.S. naval operations in the Pacific Ocean from the International Date Line to the Arabian Sea.Seaman Marousek is the son of Mr. and Mrs. E. F. Marousek of Sykesville. The 1989 graduate of Liberty High School joined the Navy in January 1991.

Army personnel at Aberdeen Proving Ground are developing methods to detect biological weapons in response to recent threats from North Korea, including a 15-foot-high device that soldiers have dubbed "the Kraken. " North Korea has issued a series of threats in recent weeks, and U.S. officials are monitoring the Korean peninsula, from which Kim Jong-un's government could launch ballistic missiles. While the danger of missiles is more pressing, Army officials said developing better capabilities to detect biological warfare threats has also been a priority for the past six years.

After spending his first year in Seoul, South Korea, James Taylor knows what it feels like to be in the minority."You walk through downtown Seoul and you've got people looking at you funny because you're American. They'll start telling you things like, 'Yankee go home,' " says Taylor, 17, originally of Yuma, Ariz."Now I know what some minorities go through (in the United States)," Taylor said.An outfielder, Taylor is one of three white Americans on the South Korean team in town for the Continental Amateur Baseball Association's 18-and-under World Series.

Imagine 99 identical Barbie dolls in green Army fatigues and boots arrayed in parade rank before a crimson backdrop. It's an image of militaristic, monolithic power that pretty much sums up artist Mina Cheon's decidedly dim view of totalitarian rule. Cheon (pronounced CHUN) is a Korean-American artist who teaches at the Maryland Institute College of Art. In previous exhibitions, she's explored the tensions between her native South Korea and its communist neighbor to the north in a variety of media, including video, interactive multimedia installation and complicated, three-dimensional string sculptures.

TOKYO -- The Japanese government raised new questions yesterday about its contrition for past militarism by declaring that its annexation of Korea in 1910 was legal and was not forced on the Korean people.The latest assertions by Japan's official government spokesman are likely to add to anger in Asia at Japan's reluctance to apologize for wartime brutality. This remains a sensitive issue in the region.The statement from Tokyo is as if the German government were to declare that its invasion of France during World War II had been legal and amicable, because agreements were signed between Germany and the puppet government in Vichy.

Memories. Of numbing cold. Of sweltering heat that made men feel like they were marching through a sauna. Of 18-year-olds who knew little about ideology pitted against 18-year-olds who knew even less. Of rice paddies that extended beyond the horizon. Of a war politicians insisted wasn't a war. Of a nation that seemed intent, more than anything, to forget it ever sent its sons and daughters to fight in Korea.Bill Robinette remembers Korea. He remembers the frostbite that gripped his toes, the shrapnel that cost him an eye and punctured his brain, the comrades killed in action who never lived to enjoy the freedom they were sent overseas to protect.

MUCH AS AMERICANS rejoice at hosting this summer's Olympics in Atlanta, hundreds of millions of sports fans throughout the world believed the U.S. reached the big-time in 1994 by hosting the soccer World Cup. It was so huge it needed the stadium resources of the nation.What the rest of the world calls football and Americans soccer has staged these wars of the best national teams quadrennially since 1930, always in Europe or the Americas. Next World Cup, 1998, is in France. It's the bidding for the coveted 2002 World Cup, the first of the 21st century, the first in Asia, that made history.

"Korea," by Simon Winchester, 240 pages, Prentice Hall Press, New York, N.Y., $10.95.Books like Simon Winchester's "Korea" belong to a lineage that goes back to the beginning of time, or at least to that time when some blue-painted Anglo-Saxon cave dweller ambled off to the next moor then came back to tell his cavemates about it."Korea" is one of those British travel books in which a British writer describes the peculiarities of a people who are not British.These books are endlessly popular, especially here in the United States, which itself has been described in many, many British travel books over the last couple of centuries, often unfavorably.

President Barack Obama's call during the State of the Union address to reduce the threat of nuclear war could not have been more timely. The day before the president spoke, North Korea tested a primitive nuclear device, and the following day reports surfaced of Iranian attempts to buy technology that would greatly speed up its production of weapons-grade uranium. Mr. Obama's remarks focused on cutting the U.S. and Russian strategic arsenals in a way that maintains their deterrent function but reduces the chances of a conflict breaking out by accident or miscalculation.

Last April, when a North Korean missile launch appeared to be imminent, this newspaper published my commentary urging the U.S. to "get tough with North Korea. " My determination that U.S. actions to date had produced little or no effect in deterring the Democratic People's Republic of Korea - the DPRK - from engaging in irresponsible, downright hostile behavior, and that an unmistakable stance of intolerance toward further provocations was needed, was based on four years of experience negotiating in and with the DPRK.

Alpine skiing coach Diane Mikulis watched as the body language of her Special Olympic athletes - including Marylander Jake Reynolds - transformed one day last month from mildly interested to awe-struck. They had just entered Herb Brooks Arena in Lake Placid, N.Y., where international flags hung majestically from the rafters and where banners and murals honored historic athletic events. The skiers listened to a brief history of the venue and now were being told they were going to be allowed on the ice. They grinned widely, and a smile slowly crept onto Mikulis' face, too, as her skiers restlessly and excitedly waited to descend the stairs.

Under its new ruler, Kim Jong Un, North Korea has reverted to its old tactics of provocation and aggression with the launch this week of a long-range missile it claims was intended to put the country's first satellite into orbit. It's unclear whether the satellite made it into orbit, but that really isn't the point. The U.S. and its allies fear the country's space program is just an excuse to develop technology that can be used to build nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles, and Wednesday's launch showed the North Koreans are making progress toward that goal.

Twenty-seven-old Minju Kim from Seoul, South Korea, found the early races a big yawn, so she and her friend Jieun Yi of Philadelphia stopped by the volleyball field. "For me, it's not that interesting," Kim said. She is visitig Yi, who is originally from Seoul, for a month. It is her first time in the United States. Yi married into a family full of horse racing fans. Today is her second trip to Preakness. She visited all three races last year, and said she perfers the Kentucky Derby for the outfits.

After four years of negotiating in and with North Korea, I cannot say that I have all of the answers to deal with a regime that defies the expectations of rational thinking, but I do have at least one of them: The Democratic People's Republic of Korea leadership, whoever happens to be the leader of the moment, whether Great, Dear, or Supreme, can only be dissuaded from chronically irresponsible behavior and from crossing a so-called red line (i.e.,...

William E. "Bud" Crosland Sr., a retired career Army officer who served in Vietnam and Korea, died Jan. 22 of heart failure at Mercy Medical Center. He was 80. He was born and raised in Bennettsville, S.C., where he graduated from Bennettsville High School in 1947. After graduating in 1952 from The Citadel in Charleston, S.C., he was commissioned an Army officer. He served in the late 1960s in Vietnam and again in 1972, when he helped to oversee the withdrawal of South Korean troops from Vietnam.

The Pentagon is creating a new intelligence service aimed at gathering information on terrorist networks, weapons of mass destruction and other emerging concerns, a senior defense official said Monday. The new Defense Clandestine Service will draw several hundred officers from the existing Defense Intelligence Agency, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the classified program. The officers - some military, some civilian - will work alongside CIA counterparts in places such as Africa, whereal-Qaida has grown more active, and Asia, where Chinese military expansion and North Korean and Iranian weapons ambitions are drawing increasing U.S. concern.

The Orioles' signing of a 17-year-old high school sophomore from South Korea has drawn the ire of the Korean Baseball Organization, which is threatening to petition Major League Baseball for what it deems the fleecing of its young talent. The Orioles announced the signing of Kim Seong-min, South Korea's top left-handed high school pitching prospect, to a minor league contract Monday. While signing players out of South Korea -- including ones in high school -- is customary, Kim is just the second high school sophomore to be signed by a major league club and the first since 1997, Yonhap News Agency reported.